[GRLUG] Distro's - was GRLUG test comment

[Raymond McLaughlin]

Adam bultman wrote:

> At some point, linux has to make itself usable to the public.  "sudo" is 
> a decent, and widely accepted and widely used management tool, and it's 
> a very happy middle point between what windows does, and the 'linux 
> way', whch is a huge pain in the ass.  The number of people I've seen 
> switch to linux I can count on both hands, and each time, they had the 
> hardest time grasping the 'this is your root password, and this is your 
> user password, and they can't be the same, and they should be difficult 
> passwords, and you need to...".    Windows is very popular because it is 
> easy, and powerful. Linux is powerful, and difficult, and without making 
> it easier, nobody will use it.  You ought to trumpet about 'root 
> security' one distributions that require root passwords and normal 
> passwords, and then watch as the user sets both passwords to the same 
> thing in the name of reducing the headache  or just use root all the 
> time to remove the headache totally.

You make some good points here, except you overlook the fact that many distros 
have fairly advanced gui administration tools. SuSE, my distro of choice, has 
Yast2 (Yet Another Setup Tool v2). Any user can try to start it, but they will 
need the root password to make changes to the system.

> Adam